Tag: health care

I’m A Liberal–And Here Is Why

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I’m A Liberal, And Here Is Why

D. S. Mitchell

The resurrection of the GOP attack on Health Care, Trump’s UN speech, and a nasty Twitter exchange with a rabid Trump supporter, or maybe, a Russian troll, has caused me to sit down and pout for a few minutes, kick my feet and wonder if the fight is worth it.  I, like many of you, get so tired.  Some days it seems like Trump, in 10 short months is on the precipice of destroying the backbone of this country, our laws and our media. In the midst of my pout, I remember what President John F. Kennedy said about his core values and I perked up and finished calling my list of potentially five persuadable Republican Senators; in an effort to stop the GOP effort to repeal the ACA. 

The JFK quote has been seen a million times, but it is worth another view.  If you are a liberal and are taking a breath, forget it. The GOP and all their ‘effing money are out to screw us all. So get up, dust yourself off, drag the sign out of the basement, and hit the streets. Or, the phone. You can have a big impact if you make those Senate office phones ring.

So, my sweet liberal friends, gather courage from the words of one of our greatest presidents, “If by a ‘liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reaction, someone who cares about the welfare of the people–their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties–someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what it means to be a ‘liberal’ then I’m proud to say, I’m a liberal.”

Keep up the fight, the road will be hard and the results slow in coming, but a determined heart will protect health care and the social contract our government has with its citizens.

Join the Resistance

Dar

Heartbreaking

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Heartbreaking

D. S. Mitchell

Calamity politics woke up early this morning to more health care debate on the the cable news channels. I have been making my calls to Senators and voicing my disgust for the emerging  disaster identified by many as, “TrumpCare”.

I have written several posts recently about the health care subject and again this morning Calamity Politics is urging political action by everyone.  If you’re reading this post don’t forget to write, call, protest, run for office, anything to further the Resistance.

One of the things that never gets people excited is organizing.  But, grassroots organizing is essential. Knock on doors, talk to people, ask them what they are looking for in a candidate, and find a candidate that matches what that community is talking about.  Whatever you do, don’t lose faith.  If you take a hammer and you hit it against a concrete wall, over and over again, that wall will breach.  We are that hammer.

The secret writing of the Republican health care bill was enough to convince many people of its dubious underpinnings. The opposition to the pending legislation by hospitals, nurses and doctors, American Cancer Society, Diabetes Foundation,  and reportedly 76% of the U.S. population is unprecedented.  Those factors alone should be enough for the Republicans to sense the way the wind is blowing, but they cannot get past the “Repeal ObamaCare” thinking.  If the Republicans are allowed to pass the TrumpCare bill many American citizens will suffer, maybe you, maybe your mother, or an uncle, a friend from work. Someone you know will be negatively effected if this bill passes.

Paul Ryan (R. WI) said he had dreamed of this bill, this moment, “since he used to talk policy at kegger parties, in college.”  Are you fucking kidding me? Someone who is still holding on to dumb ass, drunk ‘college kid’ ideas is drawing up national health care policy that potentially effects everyone in America either directly, or indirectly, makes me furious.

These folks are so removed from everyday life that they don’t even realize what they sound like. The other day Senator Lindsey Graham (R. S.C.) made the comment, “If we don’t pass a bill, we”ll  just wait until ObamaCare collapses.  Maybe then we can get something passed.”

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senator Graham’s comments are both heartlessness and offensive.  Somebody has cancer, guess we’ll watch his treatment interrupted, his life turned up side down, and most likely his hastened death.  Why, when we have the technology to save his life? Because, some guy in college fell in love with the Ayn Rand idea of ‘me’ over everyone else, or an old guy that acts as if no action is acceptable. That’s like watching someone drown and you standing on the dock ignoring the event, and it’s potential.

Maybe you guys, back there in Washington, D.C. need a reality check.  Sometimes a bad ‘promise’ should be broken, and the Republicans have made some really bad promises over the last eight years., without any regard to the negative effect, those promises will have on a large portion of the American population.

Dar

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Senate Death Panel: Thirteen, Old, White, Men

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Senate Death Panel: 13 Old White Men

D. S. Mitchell

It’s nice to say, “Hi,” when you pass a person in the hall, or when seated next to each other at a luncheon, but what would really be a good thing is for the Democrats and the Republicans to stop the bullshit, and hold their noses if they have to, and come together for the benefit of this country.

If it is a big piece of legislation such as the health care law, let’s take our time, let’s have some hearings, let’s find out who will feel the brunt of this new proposed bill.  The looming behemoth TrumpCare legislation will effect 1/6 of the United States economy and reportedly force 24,000,000 or more people completely off of health care.

The Republicans screamed that the Dems shoved the ACA down their throats.  That is an absolute lie. There were months and months of hearings, all the while President Obama and his surrogates stumped the country selling the program. So, if you don’t believe me, go back and check the records yourself. With the 24 hour news cycle, we often forget what happened just a few days ago, much less 7 years ago. In fact, I truly believe a little less conversation would have been beneficial for the ACA.  There was fatigue, overwhelming fatigue, by the time it was all said and done. Hell, it wasn’t until the Republicans threatened to repeal ObamaCare that people even figured out what a great deal it was.

Now that the Republicans are in power, Mitch McConnell has picked 13 old, white, men to his own secret Death Panel. I use that term with caution. But, quite honestly, I can think of no more appropriate name.  If you collapse in the street they will haul you to the hospital and they will do emergency care. Period.

I worked as an RN for thirty five years and have seen the situation pre-Obama and post-Obama, and I would not be able to work, ever again, in a system that tells people their cancer won’t be treated because they have no insurance. Or, to know that a child’s broken leg could literally be the straw that sends an uninsured family that is already financially challenged toward a spiral of bankruptcy.

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ASSAULT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

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Assault On The Environment

D. S. Mitchell

Iron Eyes Cody

The first time I can remember, actually thinking about pollution, I was watching a ‘Keep America Beautiful’ campaign, in which Iron Eyes Cody, had a bag of garbage thrown from a car, land at his feet. Iron Eyes, in full American Indian regalia, looks into the camera, and I watched as a tear rolled down his cheek. That was probably 1968 or 1970. Very powerful.

A Drawer Of Bags

The Iron Eyes Cody series of commercials made a big impact on me, and I made sure I never threw garbage out the window of my car, again. I also, discovered recycling, something my Mother had done for years. My Mom lived thru two World Wars, and a near country collapsing economic Great Depression. She had a drawer for the perfectly folded paper bags. There was a another drawer where she stored a ball of rubber bands, a giant ball of string, and sheets of aluminum foil layed flat. She had learned to recycle out of necessity, rather than as an environmentally beneficial behavior. Although her purpose was different from mine, the results of her actions were good. The thought of garbage on the roadside, toxic waste in rivers, polluted air, brings a tear to my eye.

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DIE, DIE, DIE

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Die, Die, Die

By D. S. Mitchell

My World

Calamity Politics is a political blog that presents the world as I see it. I am hard on the Republicans, but they deserve it. My political comments today center around the ACA and the Republican attempt to restore pre-Obama times.

A Healthy Citizen

Everybody in this crowd wants to go backward. What the fuck, is going on in their heads. A healthy citizenry is one of the best resources a country has at its core. Every civilized western country has health care for all. No questions, no arguments, it is a recognized right of citizenry.

The Grand Lie

Why is that concept so difficult for American politicians to embrace. This great, grand lie, that we make it on our own is some dime novelists idea of the American ideal. The fact is, we have a lot of sick people in this country that cannot pay the exorbitant cost of health care, or health insurance without government help.

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Trump’s Tuesday Speech

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Trump’s Tuesday Speech

D. S. Mitchell

I gave myself a couple days to digest what the ‘teleprompter’ president said in his speech to the joint Congressional Session on Tuesday.

The most as a political observer that I can say in his favor is that, Trump did lower the volume, he dropped some of his inflammatory rhetoric, and whoopee, he mostly stuck to his prepared speech.   It is obvious, the bar has been set so low by this huckster, that him sticking to a topic, evokes cheers.  How quickly we abandon quality for showmanship.

Nothing has changed.  Trump and his buddies intend to break all the toys, and then have Daddy buy new ones.  I guess that’s what a school yard of billionaires does for fun.  Steve Bannon clarified his “deconstruction” of the government plan last week, to a wildly cheering C-PAC crowd.  Trump this week, has just refined the presentation, and legitimized it, by a speech before Congress.

Here’s what’s coming.  The White House crew, and the Republican ideologues in the House and Senate will break the backs of all the government departments, ravage health care, destroy Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

I don’t know about you, but it takes my breath away.  Simply put, these spoiled billionaires don’t care, or understand, that millions of people’s lives are affected by their every action, and the action of these government departments. I know a lot of folks that depend on the services of the government and it saddens me to imagine the potential results of their actions.

I believe, a great individual is a person that can easily imagine himself in the other person’s shoes.  That’s the foundation of empathy.

Come on, guys.  Put on the other guys shoes, if he’s got any, and wear them for a day, or a week, or a month. There was a remarkable book written by John Griffin, Black Like Me which was published in 1961 that recounted his trip across the deep south, after he had his skin tone darkened, so he could effectively pass as a black man. His vivid memory of the white man’s “hate stare,” was painful. I truly believe, if each of us lived another man’s life, if even for a short time, we would quickly find compassion and respect.

Watch Calamity Politics for the latest political news and discussion.

Join the Resistance

Dar

A WHITE HOUSE MOST FOUL

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A White House Most Foul

By D. S. Mitchell

As you most know, I started the Calamity Politics political blog to vent my frustrations and keep from losing my frigging liberal mind. I try to focus on news and facts and also try to support my statements with at least two sources. With this post, I’ve thrown all those established behaviors to the wind.

1.)  Images of the newly emboldened and empowered ICE agents, handcuffing and loading people into vans, without access to legal representation, reminds me of the Nazi’s rounding up the Jews seventy five years ago in Germany.  Obviously, hate lives on.

2.)  I had a husband once.  He believed, “if you repeat a lie,  enough times, most people believe it.”  I am more of the,  “You can fool all the people some of the time.  You can fool some of the people, part of the time,  but you can never fool all the people, all of the time.”  I believe we are about to find out which theory holds water.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.  There’s a lot at stake here, 240 years of our constitutional democracy.

3.)  There is a stench rising out of  Washington, D.C. that is so foul it has reached me here on the West Coast.  I have never smelled anything so disgusting, except the odor that hovers over a rendering plant in mid-August.  The possibility that a presidential candidate would co-operate with a foreign power, one that our country has sanctions against, is truly sickening.  That despicable cloud of corruption now hangs over the entire United States,  extending from coast to coast.  Republican investigating chairmen (Nunes and Burr), admitted yesterday, that they had, at White House urging, attempted to divert media attention from the Russian investigation.

Right here, right now, I want the world to know, that I personally believe the appointment of an Independent Prosecutor is essential.

4.)  The unrelenting attacks and insults against the media, by President Trump, are inexcusable and dangerous.  A little contention is good, but what is going on is unprecedented.  Since when does the top liar in the country have the right to accuse anyone of being “fake.”  The fabricated accusations by Trump are disgusting and unnecessary.  Trump’s assault against the fourth estate must stop. I’m not a great fan of George W, but let me tell you, I was so damned glad to hear him discuss this issue on the Today show yesterday, you would have thought he was a Democrat.   I was nearly cheering.  Fuck, yeah!  “The press in an indispensable part of our democracy”.  Go George, go.  Thank you, 43.** As an aside, Mr. Bush,  I had no idea you were such a talented artist.  The several paintings I’ve seen recently are amazing.  Beautiful work.

5.) “Who knew, health care was so complicated?” President Trump expressed Monday, February 27, 2017.    OMG.  Well, at least now, he admits, not everything can be solved with a tweet.  We are number 42 on the world health care service effectiveness list.  That’s a pathetic placement.  “42”?  That means 41  other countries in the world are doing it better than we are.  Seriously, 41 other countries provide both  better and cheaper health care for their citizens than we do here in the United States.  Has anyone thought to go to the  number 1 country, or number  2 country; and see how they do it?  Boy, that’s where I’d start, if I really wanted the best for the American people.  Let’s find out how to do it right.  We can still learn.

6.)  In 1973, Richard Nixon declared, “there can be no whitewash at the White House.”

After, protests and investigations, Nixon finally resigned, before impeachment.  I wonder if President Trump will resign, or whether he will order military defense of his position.  Don’t laugh.  Just because it hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it can’t, or won’t.  Thank you Founding Fathers, for the Second Amendment.

Join the Resistance

Dar